I want to share a memory that I have about Jason Berry. It is a memory about how I met him, and how he became so important in my life.

In my first week in the United States of America I was lucky enough to meet Jason Berry.

Imagine how a small town guy from Spain should feel 3000 miles away from everything he knew, in a completely new place with no one he knows around. I wasn’t in Jason´s class; but I my roommates were at Jason´s class. I met Jason throw them and since the first day a strong friendship born.  

Jason show in me a person with a will to learn and improve his English skills, so he took me under his wings and decided to help me out spending extra time teaching me the beauty of the language, and the literature.

Once I became officially Jason´s student, Jason pushed me beyond the limit by offering me taking extra courses with him. Although it was tough I went to his classes and did his homework, and assignments with joy.  He managed to make an engineering mind that spent 4 years studying software, calculus, arithmetic, advantage math, and the language of the computers (1s and 0s) to deeply love the art of words and to enjoy the beauty of a good book.

He started as my teacher, to later become my friend, and finally my brother.

Spending time with Jason was a blessing, and his friendship was a fortune. He taught me so many things. He was a lighthouse in my life.

When I first met Jason, he was a student in one of my film classes. I rarely had seen someone so enthusaistic. He sat in the front of the class, and leaned forward whenever he had something to add to the conversation. When I found him an assistantship, he almost leaped up and hugged me right there. His enthusiasm was infectuous. I remember taking him to his first conference, and he was in love with what it meant to teach and convey information. He easily became one of my favorite graduate students, and folks joked with him that he was one of my minions because he began getting up at 4:30 am with me to get more accomplished. 

He spent a Thanksgiving with our family, and was around soon after my twins were born. He was great with them, and generous with his time. We thought of him as family. I remember his apartment on the second floor near downtown. We'd watch movies there. When he decided on doing his thesis on Jane Campion, he was warring with Cathy Whaley, who was doing hers on John Sayles, and Bob Musante, who had chosen Woody Allen. He was the sort of academic who loved to argue, but in a healthy way. He loved Nick's. He loved school.

In these last years, when I left Clemson, we began keeping up more actively. After Northeastern, we had lost touch for awhile, but FB facilitated more active conversation. He was SO in love with MaryEllis, and wrote about her constantly, as he did about  what it meant to teach. His students were his family, and we shared ideas, triumphs, mentoring tales. 

He assistant directed LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL with me in the 1,000 seat theatre at the Brooks Center. He loved it. When the show opened, he took me aside, tears in his eyes flowing, and said, "This must be what having a child feels like. You work and work to grow them, and then you send them out into the world, helplessly but confident." He was a huge help. 

I loved Jason Berry. He was Clemson to me in many ways. I will always think of him as the ideal student, always curious, always adventuresome, and always eager to grow and learn.  I will miss him always. The world is much less bright without him in it. 

Bear,

I still feel it’s warranted to call you Mr. Berry rather than Bear, seeing as how much I respect you. I woke up from a dream in the middle of the night last night, a dream about Taxi. A nightmare, actually, seeing as how that movie was one of the darker films you forced me to watch. I went to go text you yet another joke ragging on the somber film. I was groggy and half-asleep at 3 in the morning, practically falling off of my dorm bunk, reaching for my phone when it dawned on me you weren’t going to respond. I wept and I wept and I wept. Tears rolled down my cheeks going on 4, even 5 in the morning. I wanted to talk to you, be inspired by you, laugh with you like I had always done. In all my years at the Harker School, there was only one teacher that ever really saw me for who I was. In his class, I was myself. I wasn’t a kiss-ass, I wasn’t a back-of-the room passerby. I certainly wasn’t a brainiac. I was JP Doherty. That teacher was you. You became so much more than a teacher. You were my friend, Bear. I felt comfortable enough to share anything with you. We told jokes together. We had the most intellectual of debates and conversations. You were my Netflix movie discovery engine, because as we both know, theirs is terrible. You were one of the few aspects of my day I looked forward to. The way you spoke, handled yourself, taught, and mentored inspired me not to be someone different, but the best me that I could be. You brought to light for me the beauty of literature. The intimacy and vastness of modern American lit drew my attention to say the least, and it was all thanks to you. In a taxi in downtown Boston, your city, the other night with my dad, all I seemed to be able to do was stare out the window and wish all of this weren’t true. After countless minutes of silence, my dad seemed to finally decide what the right thing to say to me was. He looked at me and said “John Patrick, I know it’s hard when you lose a loved one. It’s a horrible feeling, and it can be nearly impossible to find a silver lining in a situation so grim. However, when you let your thoughts settle, and your rationality starts to find its way back to you, find consolation in the fact that you once knew Jason rather than never having known him at all”. I’m eternally grateful for our friendship and your mentorship. I miss you, and I love you, Bear.

Your student and friend always,

JP